Attracting and Retaining New Amateurs is hard but it is happening. If we work together we can do more! (see below…)
1 pm – Public Service Events | Leadership Imperatives and Pre-event Preparation
Vince d’Eon, VE6LK/AI7LK
Vince d’Eon, VE6LK/AI7LK, was first licensed in 2002 but his love of all things Amateur Radio goes back to 1969 when a family member introduced him to the magic of Amateur Radio. Vince enjoys working all modes and he works in as many contests as his time permits.
He was the Amateur Radio Lead during one of Canada’s largest natural disasters, the Southern Alberta Floods of 2013, where he led a team of 55 for the initial days of the floods until conventional communications was restored. He can be found at up to a dozen public service events per year keeping his skills fresh.
Vince is very active as a Volunteer Examiner in Canada and the United States and he delivered the first remote exam in Canada during the pandemic. Vince serves on the Executive for the Foothills Amateur Radio Society since 2013.
An electronics hobbyist, he is continually improving his design skills and has projects ongoing just about all of the time for his own station or one of his repeaters.
You can find him on Twitter @VE6LK, catch him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast and read up on his projects at www.ve6lk.com.
When he’s not thinking about Amateur Radio, Vince is a 35-year IT infrastructure technologist and is currently a Senior IT Project Manager in Healthcare where he manages multi-year enterprise level infrastructure projects. He is owned by a Shiba Inu and enjoys glamping and Scuba diving for some downtime. Vince has a PhD from the school of hard knocks.
Presentation:
Vince has been at more than one event where things went in an unexpected direction.
In this presentation you will learn the experience-based approach Vince uses to ensure he’s ready for the wide variety of situations that are presented to the “Net Control” operator running Amateur communications for a variety of event types.
It will cover the basics of preparation beforehand, ensuring the team is prepared and ready and ensuring your own go-kit is designed to match the purpose at hand.
For more information please see the Cover story of the September/October 2013 issue of The Canadian Amateur which is provided below:
“How Field Day became a Reality: The Story of the High River, Alberta Flood of 2013” by Vince d’Eon, VE6LK – Foothills Amateur Radio Society/ARES, Okotoks, Alberta with contributions from Kerry Atkinson, VE6GG and Ian Burgess, VA6EMS.
2 pm – Emergency / Disaster / Community Services
Jason Tremblay, VE3JXT
Community Services Officer
Jason’s background is in Emergency Services and Security. He previously volunteered with St John Ambulance and with the Red Cross as an Instructor and a member of Disaster Services, where he “learned about working with others and the critical need for great support and defined training systems”.
He received his Amateur Radio certification in 2014 and served as the Emergency Coordinator for the Barrie and South Simcoe ARES team for three years, working closely with the local communities. He was also the Director of Community Services for the Barrie Amateur Radio Club and served as its Vice-President, and worked with the public and community groups and other organizations for public and educational events.
Jason resides with his wife and family in Beeton, Ontario and is a member of the Barrie Amateur Radio Club. He recently stepped down as the Emergency Coordinator (EC) for the City of Barrie and South Simcoe Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) group to focus on the role of Deputy Community Services Officer and now as Community Services Officer.
Presentation:
On May 25, the RAC Board of Directors approved changes to RAC’s Field Organization that will take effect on January 1, 2023. Emergency Preparedness and the need for alignment with key stakeholders, such as the Emergency Management NGO Consortium of Canada (https://emncc.ca/, are critical reasons for the changes to the RAC Field Organization.
The reorganization of the RAC Field Organization and the addition and renaming of the RAC Sections were implemented to meet this need. The changes resulted in unintended consequences to Amateurs who participate in Contesting/Radiosport as some of the contests use the Sections in their Point system. We apologize for any inconvenience we have caused. For more information please see “The Sports Page” column on page 53 of the September-October 2022 issue of The Canadian Amateur magazine.
We have already seen justification for these changes in the increase in severe weather events throughout Canada and internationally. These events are being tracked and Emergency Managers across the world are meeting regularly and are applying predictive analytics to improve disaster relief efforts, thus reducing the economic impact of natural calamities.
The new RAC Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) – which has assumed the original function of the RAC Amateur Radio Emergency Service (RAC ARES) – recognizes that disaster response management and telecommunication standards are now mandated by Canadian federal, provincial and territorial legislation and regulations and by international agreements.
While the focus of non-government organizations continues to be disaster relief operations, the role of the new RAC Auxiliary Communications Service is to provide certified communications operators to supplement communications for local emergency management groups and non-government organizations and provide backup radio operators when required. ASC teams are in essence an integrated unpaid member of the sponsoring agency.
Events such as the massive system outage suffered by Rogers Communications on Friday, July 7 only strengthens the renewed interest in auxiliary communications and highlights the value of Amateur Radio to governments and NGOs as a way to fill communication gaps
Many of these organization have had systems in place for decades so changes will come slowly for some, but others may be able to address common elements more quickly. RAC will continue to monitor our stakeholders’ developments while we move to strengthen our Field Organization and I will be looking to fill several volunteer positions to help with the reorganization.
I look forward to sharing our plans for the future with you at the Conference.
3 pm | “Attracting and Retaining New Amateurs”
“Why isn’t anyone doing anything to attract new Amateurs and especially Youth?!”
This is a common refrain heard at meetings of Amateur Radio organizations around the world and also at RAC Headquarters. The answer is: they are but we can all do more!
Amateur Radio club newsletters and websites and the pages of The Canadian Amateur magazine and the RAC website are full of examples of what Amateurs are doing to attract Youth and new Amateurs of all ages. But we have to do better.
The “Attracting and Retaining New Amateurs” presentation is an experiment in working together to achieve a common goal and the list of Amateurs who have helped to put it together and are willing to help out in this new initiative is extensive.
We only have 50 minutes but we hope to give you a glimpse of what is already taking place and then we plan to have an open panel discussion and also to hear what you are are already doing – but you have to attend the Conference to let us know.
We plan to end the presentation with “The Next Steps: Where Do We Go From Here” and we will be looking for volunteers! It is going to be a very interesting and entertaining 50 minutes!
Presentation Contributors:
RAC Youth Program Coordinator Brian Jackson, VE6JBJ; President Phil McBride, VA3QR; Vice-President Allan Boyd, VE3AJB; Community Services Officer Jason Tremblay, VE3IXT; RAC Atlantic Director Al Penney, VO1NO (Amateur of the Year 2020); Hiroshi Takahashi, VA7LET (Amateur of the Year 2021); Youth Leaders Rob Noakes, VE3PCP, Roger Egan, VA3EGY, Harrie Jones, VE3HYS and Adrian Stimpson, VE7NZ; and online participants everywhere